1963 - 1967 Pearl Tucker NASA Archive
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GUEST:
The album belonged to my aunt Pearl Tucker. She's a colonel in the Air Force. She retired. Unfortunately, she passed away last week.
APPRAISER:
Oh, I'm sorry, oh...
GUEST:
And, so... At age 92. She was very involved in the aerospace program...
APPRAISER:
Mm-hmm.
GUEST:
And started the Aerospace Nursing Program to train nurses to take care of the astronauts.
APPRAISER:
Right, and that would be 1963, when she was assigned to do this.
GUEST:
Right, mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
It looks like she made great associations with the astronauts. There's lots of personalized cards in the albums.
GUEST:
She would come in and train nurses. She usually had two nurses at a time that she trained.
APPRAISER:
Uh-huh.
GUEST:
Over a two-year period. And they learned everything-- had to wear the pressure suits, they wore the pressure suits.
APPRAISER:
So they actually would have to take pressure training.
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
Okay, uh-huh.
GUEST:
And altitude and anti-gravity. They had to do all of that.
APPRAISER:
Okay.
GUEST:
And they wore the, the suits, especially, to know how to get the astronaut out of the suit if something happened, if there was an accident.
APPRAISER:
What is your aunt doing in this photo here? She's at sea.
GUEST:
They had these vehicles that would go out and recover the astronauts.
APPRAISER:
Ah.
GUEST:
Say, if the, if the helicopter couldn't get to them fast enough. And so they usually had two very strong swimmers on those boats, of which Pearl did not swim. (chuckles)
APPRAISER:
Tell me about the menu you have here.
GUEST:
Two days before their flight, they came in for training. Pearl decided that they needed a good breakfast. She took her china from home and she put together a nice breakfast and drew them this menu. She loved ducks, and she always illustrated things with ducks.
APPRAISER:
Uh-huh.
GUEST:
And so...
APPRAISER:
It shows a real personal connection with them.
GUEST:
Right. It was for Gemini 4. And the commander on Gemini 4 would have been James McDivitt.
APPRAISER:
Uh-huh. And Edward...
GUEST:
And Edward White was the one that did the very first spacewalk, and McDivitt had to coax him back in because he, apparently, was having a good time.
APPRAISER (laughs)
GUEST:
Borman and Lovell were the backup crew.
APPRAISER:
Later on, she's been with the mission for a while, and you see these astronauts here, you have Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee, who were with the Apollo 1 disaster.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
It was her job to help get them out of their flight suits after the disaster.
GUEST:
Right, she did, and helped with the autopsies.
APPRAISER:
Yeah. So she died, you say, in May. She's only been gone for about a week.
GUEST:
Yes, yes.
APPRAISER:
Good.
GUEST:
She's going to be interred in Arlington with honors.
APPRAISER:
Is she? In reviewing all the material I saw, probably the most valuable pieces being personalized signed things from, from the astronauts, I would say a value on this entire collection, with the album which you had brought in earlier, at auction, would be $20,000 to $30,000.
GUEST:
Wow, gee.
APPRAISER:
(laughs) If we're looking at a value of these objects here on the, on the table, the collective of the original pieces would be this, this, and these photos here, and the book-- the value of that grouping would be $5,000 to $8,000.
GUEST:
Whoa. (chuckles) She'd be really happy. (laughs)
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